Obama's near-impossible predicament

Despite his oratory skills and charisma and current popularity, in some ways new US President Barack Obama is set up to fail.

That is, for those who expect the moon from him — as many seem to.

For the realists among us, who have plausible expectations of the first African-American president’s ability, he will likely end up doing a fine job. Maybe even great. Though not without his share of failures.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Barack Obama delivers his inaugural address.

The 44th president is not Superman, despite the gosh-wow superheroic depictions popping up of him, such as in a special Spider-Man comics edition. He’s human.

He can’t change the world wholesale. He can’t even change the United States wholesale.

He’s one man facing an entrenched society and like leaders before him, if he tries to radically shake things up, he’ll find opposition rushing at him like a tidal wave.

Like virtually all top elected officials, Obama’s popularity will drop after the honeymoon. Polls will show his support erode, at least somewhat, though maybe he will be one of those exceptional leaders who manages to maintain fairly strong polling numbers, like Reagan and Clinton.

Liberals and centrists may love him, but most conservatives don’t.

Still, Obama is something of an anomaly. And a positive one.

He has the skills to go far and do good.

Rarely does a leader of the free world inspire such feelings of hope.

I have actually heard Obama speak live twice, on his campaign trail in Michigan: once in Pontiac and once in Detroit’s Hart Plaza, in eyesight of Windsor.

An electricity fills the air when he steps onto a podium. That’s true when fans of many celebrities gather to hear their heroes perform in public.

But as a journalist who has worked at three daily papers over more than two decades, and who has watched countless speakers expound on any number of topics, I can say that Obama marks something different.

The buzz he generates seems more intense, especially in the predominantly African-American auto-town of Detroit.

When Obama gave a Labor Day speech in Hart Plaza, as John Kennedy did in 1960 before going on to take the White House, people acted like they had witnessed a second coming. They arrived early in the morning, lined up for hours, and in some cases had to watch him on a giant screen since they never did squeeze close enough.

His speech that day was shortened at the last minute, out of respect for victims of Hurricane Gustav which had hit the Gulf Coast the previous day, yet still attendees gushed in tones normally reserved for rock stars.

I was within perhaps 30 yards of him both times I heard him speak, which he does in a confident, almost understated delivery with predictably eloquent words.

At the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit yesterday, watching the inauguration live on a giant screen, a jam-packed auditorium of Detroiters seemed transposed into a different realm by the words of their new president — a world of equality and hope and justice.

Obama’s tone changed, though. It went from the more positive speechifying of a presidential candidate, to a more somber message of a president. The world is harsh and the problems great, he declared, but it was nevertheless time to seek justice and, as he said, “remake America.”

Seeing people weep and pray with joy at their new leader was a wonderful experience I will always remember.

Charlene Breakfield sheds a tear January 20, 2009 at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit as she watched the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Such adulation, however, is the reason for his near impossible predicament. How to please people who expect so much?

Changing his country for the better, even marginally, should be good enough. And I believe he will.

Yet Obama is a victim of the very reason he was chosen, and thus far adored by much of the world: his rare ability to inspire.

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